Originally Posted by lorax

Sandy, your Naranjilla is ripe when the fruit is a uniform bright orange colour; since yours is indoors it won't have lost its fuzz so you can't take that as an indicator. Use a shammy or other cloth to pick it, then gently polish the fuzz off with that cloth; the spines with otherwise urticate into your hands and it will be grandly unpleasant. Another option is to take the ugliest leaf off of the plant (carefully, because if it's really S. quitoense it will have little thorns on the main vein) and use that to pick and polish the fruit. That's what we do in plantations when picking them.

If you want Naranjilla recipes, let me know; it's the fruit of choice in many parts of Ecuador. I'd have to see a picture of your plant to tell you if yours are the "eat out of hand" cultivar or the "make juice" cultivar.

Your Pepinos are ripe when the main flesh colour is a pale ivory yellow and the stripes are medium to deep purple. Equally, if you want recipes for Pepinos, let me know.

The Yacon is ready when the tops of the plant start to die. I'm really new at this one too, so I'll have to ask my adopted grannie or my Kichua neighbors what to do with them.

Artichokes are a bit tougher to gauge, but generally you should pick them before the crown of the fruit begins to indent; you're eating the immature flower heads and you need to make sure that they're not open because at that point the heart becomes bitter and you lose the tasty fleshiness of the inner petals. Here in Ecuador I tell by the light purple blush that comes over the apical petals; once that happens you've got about 2 days to pick the Artichoke or it will not taste too good.

Tobacco should be easy to find info for. If you're growing it to smoke you should pick it before it flowers (or prevent it from ever actually blooming by clipping the bloom spike), and if you're growing it for insecticide let it bloom away.